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INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 763 
plants, especially with such as either represented good forage 
or were known to possess poisonous qualities. From an 
educational point of view the importance of Botany was 
recognised by every one connected with the college, including 
many leading practitioners, who, apart from purely pro¬ 
fessional considerations, desired the advancement of their 
sons and future pupils in general culture. In regard to the 
parasites, however, you must allow me to state that its 
practical importance was not generally recognised ; and even 
at the present hour the bearings of helminthology in relation 
to the saving both of human and animal life is by no means 
fully appreciated. If in this matter I appear to some to 
assume too much the character of a special pleader, my 
apology is that frequent investigation, extending over a period 
of thirty years, has laid .bare results that ought not to be ig¬ 
nored, even by those who are content to take the lowest 
view of the aims and objects of veterinary science. When 
one reflects on the prodigious advances which this depart¬ 
ment of biology has made in relation to state medicine and 
the public health I am gratified at the thought of having 
contributed my mite to this not altogether unrecognised good ; 
but, in relation to veterinary sanitary science, much more 
remains to be said, especially in connection with the work 
done during the last five years. That the appeal made on 
the occasion before referred to was not unproductive in 
results is sufliciently proved by the fact that I have in the 
interval been favoured by a correspondence with veterinary 
practitioners which, taken as a whole, may be fairly called 
voluminous. To ensure the advancement of applied science 
co-operation is absolutely necessary, and, therefore, it need 
not surprise any one to learn that the assistance thus received 
has proved of the highest value. By this aid multitudes of 
facts bearing upon the etiology of epidemic disease were 
brought to light ; and, what perhaps some may regard as of 
higher moment, not a few other facts were of special clinical 
value. Whenever the communications appeared to me to 
throw conspicuous light on the causes of epizooty I lost no 
time in publishing the facts ; but, since some correspondents 
appear to have thought that their manuscripts suffered neg¬ 
lect, I wish to say that at times it was impossible for me to 
fulfil all their desires. My medical friends have been just as 
persistent in their demands upon my time, one correspondent 
sending me a manuscript which it took me just six weeks to 
peruse, revise, rearrange, divide, and see through the press 
in three separate periodicals. I need hardly add that this 
sort of occupation leaves one little time for original investiga- 
